


Starlight

by notebooksandlaptops



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coming Out, First Kiss, Fluff, Gay Bucky Barnes, High School, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Bucky Barnes, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve just looks real pretty in the starlight, Stucky - Freeform, just you know, mentions of internalized homophobia, set in the 1940's so people ain't exactly over the moon about the gays, slight angst, teenagers in love, two boys from brooklyn, winter soldier refrences, without ever actually seeing them go to highschool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3945715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notebooksandlaptops/pseuds/notebooksandlaptops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1934, the month is September (the 30th to be exact) and James Buchanan Barnes has come onto the roof of his best pal Steven Grant Rogers's crumbling concrete apartment building to watch the comet the crackling radio on the kitchen side spoke of that morning with Steve by his side. How could they know when they brought the pillows and blankets up there that this night would be a night of confessions and comfort and starlight? </p><p>Or</p><p>The one where Bucky comes out to Steve on a rooftop in the 1940's and the aftermath of that small yet enormous event</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> You'll have to forgive me this fanfiction, I have an unhealthy obsession with pre-serum Steve and was in a descriptive mood over the past few days. I hope you enjoy this little scene.

The sky is endless; a vast array of beauty and colour stretching in a perfect tandem of blues and blacks, reds and oranges, maroons and greys, each tone drifting within the expanse of open, undisturbed air, mixing and tainting the soft trails of golden sunbeams that dance merrily on their delicate path to open up the whole world before our eyes.

There is no end to it, no start nor stop. The sky is a line that will go on forever stretching - unbroken - across the horizon. It will always be above, there will always be more. 

Some days it will choose to rain down its fury, others it will weep its sorrow and on rare, glorious occasions - like the night of September30th 1934 – the night sky will clear itself of any and every cloud in site and reveal the perfect moon tucked snugly among the infinite amount of untouchable stars.

There is nothing quite like the sky to bring a sense of awe into the hearts of the insignificant little not-quite-apes that call themselves humans -who set themselves apart from other animals that roam their earth by their poetry and words, their art and song, their inventions and, above all, their desires. There is a clarity that comes with a clear night sky – a clarity that in future years will bring the exploration of that endless heaven that stretches to tempt the world and those among it with the breeches of unexplored space.

The concrete jungle of early ‘30’s Brooklyn lies in a seemingly unimportant manor in comparison to the way the sky has opened its gates to show its wondrous map of constellations, stars and planets. Millions of people fade to nothing over the gentle yet enormous _feeling_ one glance at the sky can grant that night. And if Brooklyn is nothing – what, to the universe, must two boys laid out upon the roof gazing up at the stars be? Nothing more than a speck of dust in the corner of a neglected room; slouched upon a book, abandoned for years for the next generation.

The sky is endless; it is wondrous.

Surely more beautiful than anything in existence to the sixteen year old boy with sandy blonde hair tickling his forehead, as he stares longingly up at the scene of beauty above him, watching for the brief flash of a comet that the static filled radio had promised just that morning. There was nothing. Nothing that could compare to the sky to that kid. Pages and pages of drawings littered that boy’s room: constellations, the planets, the moon. Nothing in life could ever be more beautiful than the expanse that opened up in midnight skies.

However his companion, laid out next to him, despite all its glory and magnificence, hasn’t even glanced at the endless sky above him for over an hour now. Grey eyes, the colour of the reflections of the morning sun when it graces the waves of the ocean after a cloud-filled night, had found an even more endless beauty to fill their sights with: blonde hair so light it could have been a construct of a million shards of gentle sunbeams, a smile so bright it could be the very smile that god wore upon his face when he first watched the universe come into being, eyes so unbelievably blue the colour could have been stolen from the same, very endless sky that lay above them, just to be placed into those heaven made irises. 

Sighing, Bucky Barnes feels his heart clench, a shiver electing through his body as the soft breeze ruffles the woollen blankets and the pillows from years past. Steve had begged they venture up here – to the roof of Steve’s concrete, crumbling, block of flats. Despite the shiver wrecking his body, he cares little for it in place of the shiver running through his best friend’s own limbs. Looking after his skinny, punk-ass self was one of the things that Bucky knew Steve prided himself on, but since the age of six James Buchanan Barnes had sworn he’d only ever have one job: looking after that skinny, punk-ass Steven Rogers until the day he died, no matter how much the kid swore he didn’t need any help and that he could ‘get by just fine on his own’.

“You’re cold.” His simple statement broke the silence on the rooftop. Sometimes Steve told Bucky off for being too much of a mother hen. ‘ _You’re my best friend, Barnes, you ain’t my mother_ ’ Steve’d grumble with a (kissable) stuck out lower lip and arms folded neatly across his chest.

Tonight Steve didn’t even turn to look at Bucky; merely shook his head, eyes wide and searching for the flash of light said to paint its flight in gold and silver across the midnight sky any minute now.

Lapsing into silence again, Bucky was left only to his thoughts that stray from place to place like a lost beggar man trying to find his way to the safety of a warm fire and a loving family. His mind speaks in volumes as it wanders round dangerous paths – thoughts turning to Steve, his best pal, right beside him, and how beautiful the kid looks under the stars which leads him to thinking about how _wrong_ it is to think shit like that when Steve is not, and never will be, a dame - which leads him to thinking about his most current girlfriend with her soft blonde hair and warm blue eyes: Lizzie Drew.

“Do you believe in soul mates?”

It’s not one of the manliest questions he’s ever asked, but he’s never felt the need to have to be ‘manly’ around Steve. Perhaps part of him does, the part that wants to protect, to be a good friend and protect that little heart made of gold he’d found beaten and bloody on the playground when he wasn’t even hitting double figures when his birthdays rolled around and he was missing at least two of his front teeth.

For an age he’s not even sure that Steve’s heard the question. He’s so still, so quiet, it’s like he’s some kind of statue carved out of glass. Bucky’s never treated Steve like he’s fragile, at least not to the kids face – but sometimes he can see it, feel it, in moments like now where one hand reached out to knock gently against Steve’s side felt like it could shatter the very being that was Steve Rogers and leave him in nothing but pieces on the ground.

“I dunno. I guess some people are better suited to people than others. I’d like to think there’s someone out there who’s gonna know me off the cusp, just see me and know I’m the one. But I ain’t ever seen it happen before,” Steve’s voice breaches the empty air for the first time that night, his words speaking of quiet contemplation. Blue eyes flicker, their gaze falling over Bucky for just a moment before they’re back to staring up at the sky, “why? You think Lizzie-Drew’s your soul mate or something?”

Carding his hand through his own hair, Bucky can’t help but think _I did. I knew you off the cusp. I see you. It’s me._ But there’s no way he can say the words that float like fragile paper-clippings in his mind. Steve’s question draws him back to himself, thinking over her. She’s not. He already knows that. She’s a nice girl, even treats Steve like he’s a someone unlike some of the other girls he’s dated in the past who treat Steve like he’s a no one. Bucky can never understand that. How someone can look at Steve and see nothing where he looks at Steve and see’s the whole damn universe.

The thing is, that she’s nice, and sweet and kind, but she ain’t the one. ‘Far as Bucky’s concerned there’s only ever been one ‘one’ for him, and it ain’t Lizzie Drew. Church halls flash in his mind like a movie, ministers preaching soul mates, ministers saying it’s a sin to lay with another man. So how come God made him so perfect for someone he thought it was so sinful for Bucky to have?

“Nah,” Bucky’s voice holds all the confidence he doesn’t feel. He’s always worn a mask, a mask of the cocky confident kid with a bright smile and a way with the dames. He’s a dancer, he’s a singer, he ain’t even half that bad at playing the piano even if he only knows the three songs his Ma taught him before they had to sell it to earn some extra cash to pay for the food that month, “nah, I don’t.”

Wind whistles around them again, stronger than before, louder, but it still feels silent all the way up here. They’re so high up. Bucky feels like he could just reach up and he’d touch the sky.

“But do you think she’s out there? You’re soul mate? Do you believe in soul mates, Bucky?” Steve’s still staring at the sky, and his words are almost nonchalant, like he doesn’t truly give all that much of a damn about the answer. But Bucky’s known Steve long enough to know he listens. He listens to every single word that comes out of anyone’s mouth – he’s got this thing where he thinks everyone’s got a right to be heard. Another small piece of gold within his heart no one’s ever bothered to care for (no one that ain’t Bucky or Steve’s Ma that is).

The words for his answer take a long time to form in his head, and when they do he’s not all that sure they make one hundred percent worth of sense, but he speaks them anyway, because Steve’s listening, just as he always is. “I think we’re made for people. I think there’s some people we fit with, like those jigsaw puzzles your Ma used to buy you for when you got ill. I just don’t think they’re always made for us _back._ If that makes sense at all – I mean, like, say there’s someone who’s my soul mate, but for them I ain’t their soul mate. You get it?”

Steve’s brows furrow a little, and his gaze is back on Bucky for a millisecond again – and Bucky swears it’s almost calculating, the way those eyes meet his, as if he’s trying to work out some maths puzzle and failing horribly (Steve’s never been all that good at math). “I don’t think God’s that cruel,” he said finally, turning his head back to the sky. “-he wouldn’t make you perfect for someone and not make them perfect back.”

Steve has got a faith in God Bucky just can’t grasp at. Always has, and always will. He goes to church every Sunday, sits down, says his prayers. He believes that he’s being cared for, that he’s being loved. No matter if they’re all starving, if they can’t work up enough money sometimes to pay the bills, no matter that Steve’s ill himself and doesn’t always get the treatment he needs, no matter that Steve’s Dad died before Steve ever got to know him, no matter that Steve’s mum’s ill and not getting any better even if no one’s talking about it. He just…has faith.

It’s something Bucky can’t understand.

“But what if I ain’t perfect? How can anyone be perfect _for_ me if I ain’t perfect myself. If I’m…broken. Not put together right,” he doesn’t know how to change it. The way he see’s men – not just Steve – and wants to shove them against a wall and kiss them, whereas women he just takes as good dance partners and leaves them at that. It’s not right that a man would get his heart beating more than a pretty dame, not right that a man would have him hot and bothered whereas a woman would just have him smiling politely, not right that when he sits in bed in the darkness of the night and touches himself, his mind thinks of short hair, a body built like his own, a man’s face in place of a woman’s.

The frown on Steve’s face is evident now, his eyes breaking contact with the sky for longer than a few seconds, settling on Bucky with a disbelieving expression in them, “you think you’re not perfect?” he asks after a moment, arms wrapped tightly around his chest, blanket tucked high up under his chin.

“I know I ain’t,” Bucky’s got no right to look away now that Steve’s offered him his full attention, but he finds himself doing so anyway – eyes trailing patterns and consolations in the darkness of oblivion that hangs above their heads. He’s never told Steve he’s queer, not once. He’s too scared for the reaction – to scared to lose the man he holds so dear. Get right down under it and Steve’s a good, old, catholic boy – and good, old, catholic boys don’t tend to make a habit of socializing with those who dirty their hands with the sins of pleasure and want.

“And why on this earth, would the great Bucky Barnes, think he wasn’t perfect?” Steve’s laugh filled the air as light and innocent as untainted meadows free from the smog and noise of the cities, of beautiful budding flowers in the spring. He’s joking, teasing, just like they always do. But the sky’s too clear, the moon too full for Bucky to joke with Steve tonight – there’s something out there, something making him want to tell the truth for the first time in his god forsaken life. But he can’t. He just can’t.

The wind settles around them, the breeze dissipating to leave only silence, only the sound of their uneven breaths turning the air before them white with cold. It’s only when he notices, from the corner of his eye that Steve is shivering, his small body shaking, that Bucky allows himself to move closer, to wrap arms around the younger boy and hold him firm against Bucky’s chest. It’s innocent, something he’s done a thousand times, when Steve was ill, when the winter hugged too close to his tiny body, on the nights when a fever broke so violently across Steve’s body that Bucky honest to god thought he might die. He pays no mind as Steve snuggles close, buries his head under Bucky’s chin, body shaking under the weight of the cold air around them.

“Buck…” Steve murmurs from his spot held close against Bucky’s chest, and Bucky can feel eyes on him, locked on his own, yet he can’t bring his gaze to meet Steve’s halfway. He’s almost shaking, though it’s not from the cold the way Steve is himself: it’s from something else entirely; a secret held inside too long, from a fear he can’t escape no matter how many girls he kisses.

“I ain’t perfect, Stevie,” it’s all he can offer, a simple sentence taken from the bottom of his goddamn heart. It is all he can offer with the perfect knowledge that what he’s saying is the truth, that what he’s offering up to Steve is real: because he isn’t. He’s never been perfect the way that Steve has always been, even if it weren’t for him being queer. He’s got a darkness to him, an edge he’s always felt: brittle and firm as a goddamn knife ready to cut up the heartstrings of all those around him: cut up the heart strings of those he loves. Sometimes he forgets about it, and sometimes he believes it’s normal, believes that everyone feels this way and that he shouldn’t worry about it; sometimes in the midst of summer he’s fine.

But when winter comes, he can feel it.

His mother once called him a soldier- just like his father, and sometimes the thought terrifies Bucky. To most, this honour of manhood would be a prize, to him it was certification to a guilty sleep that rounded his little life. He’s only sixteen, he doesn’t want to be told he’s a soldier, not wanting to be like his father. His father is dead, and he died killing anyone they told him to with a gun in his hands. Who would want to live that way? Who would want to _die_ that way?

Perhaps everyone has that: the feeling of not being perfect. That feeling that dents dips into his stomach with worry, numbing the pain that fires there, but only causing the ignition to escape to another area of his body. But for Bucky it’s so much more, at least that’s what it _feels_ like, deep inside. Maybe he’s comparing himself against Steve too much, against the golden boy with a heart larger than the sun- a boy who wants to warm everyone around him with whatever he can offer. Maybe it really is just because he’s queer and that _scares_ him. But, just maybe it’s the winter, fast approaching as summer slowly loses its grasp on the world and fades within its inevitable death.

‘ _I ain’t perfect, Stevie,’_ the words resonate in Bucky’s mind.

“Don’t say that.” His voice almost startles him, lost in his own thoughts. He barely expects to hear it and he certainly doesn’t expect to hear the harshness that stands tall over him, despite the speaker being skinny and small, barely reaching his own shoulders if they stood back to back – doesn’t expect the words to be said in such a stern way: _don’t say that._ “You ain’t anything less than _perfect_ to me, Bucky Barnes.”

And that: those words, that’s what finally does it for him. That’s what finally brings him down. Because Steve is wrong, and if Steve knew just how wrong he was, he wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t want to be in the loop of Bucky’s arms. He would want to be far away with some other friends, friends who didn’t look at Steve and see something beautiful and kissable, just friends who looked at him and merely saw a good pal. He feels himself break, knowing that later, when he’s far away from Steve’s eyes he will cry, because Steve has always seen him as something he’s not; always as perfect, has always seen him as some sort of star when all Bucky really is, is a black hole.

Perhaps Steve would have gone on, or Bucky would have found some words to fill the silence that seemed so intent on crowding them tonight. Perhaps a lot of things would have happened that never did because instead, in that moment, a comet flew past. A sliver of burning silver dancing ahead of all the other stationary stars that watched in envy at its burning path across the sky, watching in glee as it sped on its way past the absent Earth.

It was the barest wink of a moment, but he could tell Steve saw it too. More importantly, he could tell he was in _awe_ with it with his frail body striving to break free of Bucky’s weak grasp, sitting up as a breath tumbled from his slightly parted chapped lips. The blanket falls from its place- snug beneath his neck where it worked it’s hardest to keep the cold air at bay, to settle over the contours of his knees.

And those _eyes._ Widened with an expression close to lust or infatuation so that that beautiful blue became only a thin halo around calming, soulful black. Such a metaphor for the angel that was embodied within the man Steven Grant Rogers. Bucky watched him with more wonder than could ever be gained by his eyes tracing the path of that comet, watched fingers scraping ever so lightly over the concrete as he shifted to get a better position; his head tilted back to bare the pale skin upon his neck, straining to see every second of the arching curve that the flash of light created traveling in its unimaginable journey across the sky.

He could never say, later, why he did it here and now, why the words slipped out of his mouth while he was staring at one of the most glorious sites: not the sky and the race of the comet along it, not the beauty behind that of stars and nebulas and all the other fantastic things yet to be discovered in this ever expanding universe, just one tiny, insignificant man: Steve Rogers. And suddenly it was uncontainable, something he couldn’t hold onto without risking erupting like a dying star to scatter across the universe, never whole again.

“I’m queer.”

The spell broke a second later, the moment snapping back into real time as the comet fell from sight and Steve’s head snapped up, eyes jerking away from the sights it was oh so focused on seconds before and instead, fixating itself on the other. 

“What was that?” he asks, carefully, quietly, deliberately.

The world spins around him so fast it feels like the crust might deem fit to catch itself on fire and burn away the ground, that volcanoes might erupt and flow in rivers of heat to engulf him and carry him away from this awful moment. _Why_ had he just said that? What spell had he been under to whisper such a thing with conviction? Losing the battle of eye contact, he feels himself look instead to the floor, then the roof of the building, wishing it would open up to swallow him whole. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Stevie,” He whispers, shifting slightly away from the other, body curling up on itself, “you heard me.”

Silence. So silent that Bucky thinks that Steve might have just vanished, that he might have just disappeared away from Bucky’s grasp; found a way to teleport away from the queer who pretended to be normal for the sake of the world around him. How long did they sit like that? - he wasn’t sure, sitting, waiting for an answer, for some form of acknowledgment.

“You like boys?” 

Absently, Bucky found himself wondering if the shock in Steve’s voice would soon give way to disgust. When the wind elicits a shiver from his body this time he can’t help but feel it all the way down to his core, the burning hot molten inside of him that shaped who he was. A broken boy.

“Yes.” the admission scratches at his throat on its way out, such a plain and simple word wrapped up with so much meaning, so much guilt.

“But-“ and here it comes, he thinks duly, ‘ _but you can’t be queer’_ will come next. _‘You ain’t no fag’_ and Bucky will have to shake his head and force tears away and make Steve realise that the ‘perfect’ man he thought he knew isn’t real, is just a figment of childish imaginations and good acting skills. He wanders in the back of his mind, if perhaps Steve really does see him as perfect now, or if those words had been retracted as soon as Bucky had mentioned he wasn’t anything but a cowering, whimpering, fag.

“But you’re with Lizzie Drew.”

Oh. So that is the way Steve is going to go with this. Hands brushing over a pebble lying sleeping on the flat roof, Bucky’s fingers curl around it to lightly chuck it from his grasp, into the drop that lay in waiting less than a metre away from them. ‘What is it like?’ he wonders. To fall. To fly. He supposes they’d feel like the same thing for a moment, if he was to follow the path that unredeemable pebble had taken, a more peaceful ending to his story than this conversation with Steve would take him down.

“What then?! You want me to find myself a guy to go with or something?” 

He didn’t mean to sound harsh, but maybe he did, the words seeming to echo in the quiet space that now felt like a million stretching miles between them, the distance between one far away galaxy to another, “we both know that’s not possible. I go with dames because they like me, and I like them, to a point. But they ain’t who I think about, Stevie. They ain’t who I-“

He is cut-off by the heat of a thousand little burning stars, the warmth of an embrace, an embrace like the heavens embrace all the tiny, brilliant lifeforms that rest their weary eyes on this earth. Breath leaving his lungs in a tumble of the unspoken words he was about to say, his eyes find the tufts of light blonde hair (blonde hair so light it could have been a construct of a million shards of gentle sunbeams) buried deep within the meagre warmth his neck could offer. It is so unrealistic, makes no logical sense, but arms are wrapped in a circle around him so tight that if Steve was any stronger, any bigger, then perhaps Bucky would feel like his ribcage might crack.

“Stevie?”

His voice is hollow, and weird sounding even to his own ears, like he’s been sobbing uncontrollable tears all his life and only now has worked out how to stop the flow of insistent water pooling in his eyes – only he hasn’t, he doesn’t think he’s ever cried in front of someone in his entire life who’d rightly remember it (no one who wasn’t wrapped up in fever anyway, so hot their skin burned to touch, breath so shallow he’d truly believed they were going to die, light blonde hair soaked with sweat as Bucky ran shaking fingers through their hair and wondered vaguely what he’d have left if he lost this sweet boy lying in the small, uncomfortable bed). Perhaps though- perhaps-maybe he _has_ been crying. Just inside, lost within a part of himself he wouldn’t dare let anyone see, not until now at least.

“S’okay, Buck,” Steve murmurs, and the words are like a hundred gently pressed kisses flowing from loving lips, “s’okay.”

“How can you say that?” He asks, his voice barely there, clouded with so many emotions the actual meaning is almost silent.

Steve’s eyes flicker up to his own for the barest of moments, just the lightest of glances, a barely there touch, like hands brushing over soft cheeks in the most gentle of caresses, and it’s a second before the metaphor becomes a reality, Steve’s thin and bony fingers against the skin covering his face, “there is nothing wrong with you,” Steve promised, almost as if he could hear the thoughts that had been marching their way like an army to battle around Bucky’s head his whole life, creating war and pain with every fire of a gun, every bomb that exploded through a mist of innocent thoughts. “Come on, Buck. It’s just me. Yeah, I ain’t half a bit shocked, but you ain’t gotta act like I’m gonna shun you or nothing.”

Steve’s seeing something with a sense of clarity Bucky’s not sure has been placed the right way, like he’s looking through a magnifying glass but not taking in just what he’s seeing, and so Bucky can’t put on a face and tease back, as much as he might long to, because he has to know _why._ He has to understand the seemingly blatant piece of information that shrouds the idea of Steve not ‘shunning him’ as the other had put it. “Why ain’t ya?”

“Oh Bucky,” Steve whispers, his eyes darkening just a little, but not in anything close to fear, just something that looked akin to sadness, hell, even hurt seems to flicker across that beautiful boy’s face, “you’re my best friend, and it ain’t like you can _help_ it.”

Perhaps if Bucky was just a little smarter he’d see something stronger than sympathy or empathy adorning Steve’s bright blue eyes, but Bucky isn’t looking for the understanding that lay there, he is looking for betrayal or hatred and the fact that he was finding none…well, it should make him ecstatic, but right now it just made him utterly confused, “I don’t understand. Come on Steve, you’re a catholic kid, you go to church every damn Sunday, you believe in everything those ministers preach.”

Arms retract themselves from around Bucky’s waist, and for a moment, Bucky wonders if perhaps he’s just cut off his own nose to smite his face, if he’s just convinced Steve to hate him, to walk off this roof, away from the stars, the quiet, the confession and to never come back. But then arms fold themselves over the other’s chest, his bottom lip sticking out just a little as it always did when Steve was being stubborn, and words begin to flow like water over the pebbles of a stream out of the blonde’s mouth, “You really think I believe _everything_ they say? I ain’t some- some idiot, Buck. I buy into the love stuff, but do you expect me to believe my god, the god that created all of that,” His hands wave up in the air, as if trying to brush against the very fabric of space that lay over the earth like a blanket to keep it warm at night. “is nothing more than one of the bullies I hate so much? Look, how I see it it’s simple. Real simple. Why would god make you love guys if he didn’t want you to love guys? Bucky, come _on,_ you’re the best guy I know. You’re _my_ best guy. And believe me, it took me a long time to come to terms with all this myself, but I don’t think God hates queers. I don’t believe that at all.”

 “A long time? Punk, you only found out five minutes ago,” Bucky latches onto that part of the conversation, to stop the buzzing in his ears from taking over, to stop the beauty and meaning in Steve’s words from bringing tears to his eyes. He isn’t going to lose Steve. How could he ever think he would? It seemed so simple from Steve’s lips, like it was the absolute and utter truth, such a refreshing change from the never ending rain of derogatory notions chucked around (and inadvertently at) Bucky since before he even really knew what a ‘queer’ was. There’s no words he can think of to describe what Steve just said, no words to describe the emotions that wrap around his body, all he can do is whisper the word ‘punk’ between his words as a sign of how much that means to him.

 But it’s almost as if by saying the words he’s done something wrong, as he watches the slight upturn of lips on the other boys face drop slightly, a hand running through that blonde hair, teeth pulling at the edge of his mouth in indecisive contemplation that Bucky can’t quite uncover the meaning of. His mind runs over his words, over Steve’s words. If Steve didn’t freak out about the queer thing, then what could this moment, this moment in the aftermath of the build up to a quaky speech about god, what could this moment hold over Steve’s head in order for the man to look like that?

“Stevie, what’d I say wrong?”

Sometimes, Bucky can see every single reason why Steve is an artist, so plain and simply laid out in front of him. Not all the time of course, sometimes you’d never guess that when that man picked up a pencil he could create the most beautiful of fantasies, sprouting seemingly from nothing over a blank page. But sometimes it’s right there, in the way he moves, in the way his eyes flicker over the world around him, in the way he breathes, each one tempered and uneven but still placed out in time to everything else breathing in the world around him. He sees it in the way Steve looks at the stars above him, sees it in the way that Steve sits in church, almost envious of god and all he managed to create in the seven days the bible states. But sometimes it’s in the small things – a pencil absently sketching over a blank piece of paper or – like now – a free hand touching the cold hard roof, fingernails running over the little barely there pebbles in the concrete.

 “It ain’t only been five minutes, Buck. I mean, I guess it has been for _you_ but you know you ain’t the only queer in the world, obviously, there are others,” the words are whispers, and all of a sudden, those eyes that Bucky has seen swell with so many emotions over the years: anger, happiness, courage (always courage, always and forever courage), fever, love, hatred – all those things, all those feelings that make Steve Rogers the wonderful human being that he is: they all fade for just a moment, to leave behind an unsure shell of a ghost lingering like a spirit in a graveyard locked tight within those perfect eyes.

 And for the life of him Bucky doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how Steve can neglect to see Bucky as anything but perfect when he admits he’s queer, and yet react like this at a simple joke sprung out of Bucky’s lips; simple to hear unlike the mess of emotions Bucky was feeling. 

  
Tenderly, he raises his own hand, about to take Steve’s within his own before he realises that perhaps Steve was adverse to that idea. So an arm instead travels around the other’s shoulders, in nothing that couldn’t be described as a friendly gesture if any onlookers happen to gaze their eyes upon the scene – not that they would, perched high and alone as they were. Up here Bucky can almost believe there wasn’t a single other human being left in the world but them, “I don’t understand.”

 “Ain’t it obvious?” Steve’s voice has an odd quality to it now, something Bucky’s simultaneously sure he’s heard a million times and never heard at all, “Buck, I ain’t exactly normal, am I? I mean, we both pretend, we love pretending, I think sometimes pretending’s what we do best – but I ain’t normal. I’m sick. And I’m most likely gonna die before I can reach anything past thirty. I ain’t ever gonna have a wife, or kids, or anything. And that’s just the start of it. And I guess I thought-“ he shrugs, fingers tracing over his knee as he tries to find the right way to phrase this train of thought to his best friend sat right up here beside him; the wind the only sound in Bucky’s ears as he listens to the words he knows are true, words that make his heart ache, words he’s been ignoring his whole damn life. He wants to tell Steve to stop, beg him to do so, but somewhere along the way they’ve created a bubble here, a space on the edge of the universe just for them to admit the secret feelings swaying like ships on rough seas in their minds. It would feel like territory to break this silent packed they’ve made, especially when Steve’s half way through some revelation that Bucky has yet to see the point of.

“For a long time I thought I was sick in a lot of other ways as well. I thought it was infection. The way a fella could turn my head as easily as a dame, the two separate genders I’m supposed to distinguish between friend and lover just mixing around in my head. And I confessed it so many times to all those priests, so much they must have thought me such a sinner, Bucky – and it took me such a long time to realise – if God created all, if God loved all- why would he hate me for something I couldn’t change. Even if it was a sickness – god does not hate me for my asthma, or for my other illnesses – I like to think he takes pity on me for them. Surely God should be loved and not feared if he is really the artist that created the painting we know as the universe?”

Steve speaks beyond his years for a moment, as if he were man trapped inside a sixteen year old’s body, facing death with every new winter, every new disease, facing a world of hurt and pain and trying to find some form of comfort in a God he so desperately had to believe in.

And yet despite this, Bucky could only focus on one thing, one notion to come from that speech. That speech that seemed to have more wisdom within it than even the stars held, the stars that had been gazing from their positions in the sky for years upon years, stars that had seen love and loss and heartache and war and battle and everything the human race had to offer. Give him time, and perhaps he’d look back on it, in the desolation of the war: he’d look at Steve, no longer a boy facing death, and see the Captain that had resided in him all along. But that was a time for the future, and for now, all he could truly grasp at was the meaning behind Steve’s words, the reality of what he’d just spoken.

“You like boys too?”

A moment, small as the flutter of a smile that passes across Steve’s lips as his eyes met Bucky’s, locks onto his gaze, only shifting from it to roll his eyes towards the heavens, a fond expression crossing his face, “Bucky Barnes, you Jerk, I go and pour my heart out and that’s all you can come up with?” to Bucky’s ears he can still hear the uncertainty in Steve’s tone, can still see it marked out in lines over that angelic face. It’s awful, and Bucky wants to hide it, wants to take it away so that Steve no longer has to touch it; never has to be unsure again.

Disbelief clouds his face though, almost shining out as brightly as the hope lingering in his eyes. How could he get so lucky, the two of them together and the two of them liking everything they shouldn’t? It’s crazy, so crazy Bucky’s almost afraid he’ll wake any moment, almost afraid that he _won’t._

Perhaps he would say some more meaningful crap that the two of them would hold onto, but the time for such confessions is gone, the bubble at the edge of the universe floating back to ground them. So Bucky doesn’t do anything but smirk, and shake his head, “what’d you expect me to say, Rogers? You want a soliloquy or something?”

“Big words for a guy with such a small brain,” the retort slides of Steve’s tongue mellifluously, tasting just as sweet as the most heartfelt of compliments.

“You’re one to talk,” comes the reply that has a laugh emerging from Steve holding none of the uncertainty of before, a fact of which Bucky is desperately glad for.

This here: this is what he lives for. These moments with Steve. One second heartfelt, raw, the next the easy banter that they’ve been throwing at each other since they were merely children much like one might grant flowers to a loved one with such ease. He lives for the jabs that Steve will throw at him, lives to hear Steve’s laugh when he jabs straight back, lives to know that Steve will put up with his crap, listen to any of it, lives to know that Steve’s got a pile of his own crap that Bucky will dutifully, even joyfully help him shoulder.

Again it’s quiet for the barest of moments, as the world swirls around them and they catch their breath. It’s so odd, so amazingly, fantastically odd, how the world will keep on spinning, how even now, in these quiet few seconds of contemplation, the world turns just as it always has, just as it always will, till long after the human race has left its shores to delve into the skies that seem so untouchable to the two boys, close as brothers, on the roof of a crappy concrete apartment in Brooklyn.

“So-“ Steve begins after a second, leaning into the arm wrapped tight around him as his source of warmth and comfort, just as it’s always been, just as _Bucky’s_ always been.

“So-“ Bucky mirrors, with a light chuckle, head turning to get a look at this boy he’d give his left arm for if it was ever asked, this boy who he’d give up anything to make happy. It’s not like he was expecting this revelation, this rollercoaster of emotions that he had unwittingly partaken tonight.

“How long have you known?” Steve continues, hand moving from its position of tracing idly over the floor, to take up the task against the fabric covering Bucky’s knee.

“Known what?”

“That you liked fellas,” Steve mutters, rolling his eyes and half moving to hit him upside over the head, his hand reaching up to press against those brown curls that covered the back of Bucky’s neck, the softness of each strand brushing against pale paper-thin skin as he did so, “god you’re stupid sometimes,” what had started out as a hit turned into more of a light stroke as he got out the second part of his sentence, the tone of his voice almost a picture to behold in itself as he let the caress last just a tiny bit longer than perhaps strictly necessary.

“Oh,” Bucky says dumbly, his voice is almost shaking, though this time not from fear of hatred or rejection, but from a much stronger feeling, one far more powerful that fear, a feeling that had lived in the hearts of men for as long as this earth had been father to them: hope. “That.” The other’s fingers against his scalp seemed to momentarily short circuit his entire system and now he’s desperately trying to bring his brain back online, “I guess I’ve known since we were- what twelve? Maybe younger. I don’t know.” It had never really been something he’d known, there hadn’t been a particular moment of realisation. It had just been Steve. It had always been Steve. Others had come with it, of course, but none who had stayed for any length of time in his mind the way Steve had.

He’d always known he loved Steve, and he always had, the feeling had just shifted as they grew to fit the ages they were at: for young children hardly know the meaning of the word love, but even if they do not know that doesn’t mean they cannot feel, the feelings just have yet to tie themselves to a notion, or a word, or an act of sinful lust. He’d always known he loved Steve, more deeply than he cared for anything else even his bright red fire engine he’d adored so much. He’d just never realised just how that love would manifest when they were children.

It feels odd, like they’ve breached the hard part of this conversation, that they’ve broken the boundaries that lay between them, and yet everything still hurts in much a similar fashion, if not more so. Steve broke down the voices in his head, at least for the moment, that spoke of illness and disease and sins. But with doing so he has inadvertently admitted something else: that Bucky was someone who he did not think of as any more than the friend he’d grown up being, and this time not even because Steve could never feel such attraction towards a man.

Unless he hadn’t.

Hope flickers in Bucky’s chest like the light of the lone star heralded for prophecies and greatness, hanging in the sky. He knows that it was a fool’s feeling- hope, but it was also such a deep and un-detachable human feeling, one impossible not to hold lightly in your palms once you got a mere taste of it. Hope was what built generations, what kept mural alive. Hope was the thing that kept the heroes moving forwards in all the stories and all the tales.

“You ever been with a fella, Buck?” comes the next question, reaching out to Bucky and pulling him from the lost trail his thoughts had lead him down.

He swallows, heart pounding. It’s now or never. Now or never. Now or never. He keeps that thought alive and burning within his mind’s eye, holding it there. It was a simple weighting scale, a balancing act. Is he more scared about the now and the horrors that that path may lead him down or is he more scared of the never. Of having Steve oh so close and never getting the chance to whisper in his ear, to let him know, just how much Bucky cared.

 What is he more scared of?

“Nah,” he murmurs, “I mean, I’ve kinda been waiting for someone. One of my friends. I know it’s stupid.” He glances up at the stars, easier to confess to them than blue eyes that worry him as for what emotion might swirl within his gaze when these words left his mouth, “I just always been besotted with him, always loved ‘um, even when I didn’t even really know what love _was_ you know? I always thought they’d never- I mean, they couldn’t, not when they weren’t like me. But I guess I’m starting to hope.”

Here is a simple fact of life: Bucky Barnes was not the brave one. Despite what people may think about weak, kind, sickly Steve Rogers and boisterous, flirtatious, troublemaking James Barnes (a reputation he’d gained after finishing one too many of Steve’s fights for him, being the reason for the tears of one too many fathers beautiful daughters) Bucky had never _ever_ been the brave one. Steve was always the strong one, always the one to take a stand even when the chance of winning remained next to none, Steve was the one who had courage the size of the body he’d never possessed wrapped up inside him like a lion locked in an undeserved cage.

Steve was always the one to jump to defend someone.

Steve was always the one to conquer his fears in the hopes of setting things right.

Steve sees the beauty in the world, the beauty that he believes needs protecting above everything. He saw the smile that others would hide, saw the love that others might let die, saw the good where others would only see the evil. Steven Grant Rogers did not see the problem, he saw the solution, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t somehow a part of it.

Steve _was_ the brave one. The one who faced the world with a come-at-me attitude that could be vicious as it was kind. It was shown in the fights he’d pull in back alleys, or in the shopping he’d carry home for old ladies, even if in reality he was no more fit to carry the groceries than they were. Steve was brave in the way he neglected his health for the sake of those around him or to come up onto a rooftop in late September and refuse to let his illnesses dictate that that wasn’t allowed, refused to let the cold beat him. He was brave in the way he sat on a roof and told Bucky that the priests had to be wrong, that he was happy as who he was and believed that god thought just the same. He was brave.

But perhaps- perhaps now is the time for Bucky to be the brave one. And so he says what he does, offering as much conviction and hints of lust and love into those words as he could. He may just be a kid from Brooklyn but he was also Steve Rogers best friend, and a life of hanging around some kid who shone as brightly as Steve did -well, it at least left you with the longing to become a beckon of hope as well, at least left you with the want to be the others light in the darkness and if he could only be one person's light he’d be damned if that person wasn’t Steven Grant Rogers.

Because that is what they are to each other, isn’t it?

A light in the darkness? A warm body to carry each other home when they lost to the malicious intent of the bullies? Someone to listen when every other door was shut right in their faces with no hope of opening any time soon? They were each other’s _always_ in a world of _for now’s_ and _for a bit -_ hell, even Mrs Rogers was slowly fading from the world (though no one spoke of that, no one spoke of how she was ill, that beautiful perfect women slowly heading towards her expiration date; least of all Bucky, who even called her Ma sometimes, just as Steve did, and treated her as he would his own mother.) and that wasn’t even mentioning every winter that tried to pull Steve away.

Because god, even if Steve left into the arms of god, even if he vanished into the stars, the heavens Steve admired so much, he would still be an always. As far as Bucky was concerned, there was no end to this line, no place where Steve could go where Bucky wouldn’t follow. Steve could drag him to the end of this universe and Bucky would dutifully follow (with only mild complaining, he might add).

Because the thing was, that no matter which way you looked at it, no matter from any angle, any place, Bucky could be every version of himself around Steve. He could be the quiet, scared little boy worried about being queer, he could be the philosopher that lived at the hearts of all men, he could be the jerk who could punch better than anyone in town, or he could be the man who threw easy banter back and forth with his best friend.

Steve was something else. Was every side of Bucky and nothing like Bucky all at the same time. And while Steve was the brave one in so many circumstances, here Bucky had to be the first one to reach out. He had to know if what he felt was merely a one sided emotion built up only as a tool only useful to break his own heart or if there was any chance in this world, that the stars would align so perfectly to let both him and Steve give it a shot, as unlikely as that possibility seemed.

If it was going to happen, it would happen tonight. Tonight where they’d been more honest with each other than they could possibly have imagined being at the start of the night, when they’d dragged pillows and blankets up here and set out to catch a comet. Tonight where confessions had been made in earnest, was there perhaps room for one more? Was there any chance for a miracle? Bucky half cursed himself for not wishing on that comet earlier, that’s what you were supposed to do, wasn’t it? Make a wish on a shooting star, make all your dreams come true. At least he suspected that would be what Steve would say, if he was being honest and not hiding the part of himself who believed in such things as he usually did.

“Bucky?” Steve has been silent for so long, Bucky has half-forgotten he was even waiting for a reply. His eyes find the other boys, those bright blue spheres like the ocean and the sky and every other perfect creation of god. Perhaps- just perhaps…

Was that hope he saw buried away in there, in the swimming seas of blue that Bucky had been longing to drown in since he first realised what it was to get lost in another person's eyes?  
  
“Yeah, you Punk?” he murmurs in question, Brooklyn accent as thick as ever.

“You meanin’ what I think you’re meaning?” it is thick in Steve’s as well. Makes sense, he supposes, they are two boys from Brooklyn after all, always had been, always would be, no matter where this world may take them. You could take the boy out of Brooklyn, but unless you wanted a good choice of swear words and a few punches thrown your way you couldn’t ever take the Brooklyn from the boy.

And right now, right _now_ in the mess of emotions, all Bucky can feel is stupidly boyish as he shrugged, faking innocence, “How am I supposed to know if it’s what you’re meaning if I don’t know what you’re meaning. It’d be real stupid if you meant something different and I said yes now wouldn’t it?”

Unamused, Steve rolls his eyes, knowing full well they had an ease about each other, had known each other so long that they were close to being able to read each other’s minds, that they aren’t likely to get a thing wrong about the others guesses, especially in something as obvious as this. A light wind picking up the strands of Steve’s hair in its next gush, making them dance around Steve’s head, giving the brunette a good enough reason to reach forward and brush the short strands behind Steve’s ear, to make a little more contact than they already were with Bucky’s arm tight around him and Steve’s fingers tracing steady lines over his knee. For a second he has the indescribable urge to let Steve paint _him_ not just his picture, but to let Steve use Bucky’s own skin as a canvas, to give him free rein to paint over all the ugly parts that Bucky hates to show, adding colour and patterns to them until they shine as beautiful as anything Steve creates, as beautiful as the omniscient sky above them. It’s an unrealistic urge, to ask Steve to waste his paint over him when Steve barely had enough money to paint a canvas, why waste money when Bucky would just have to wash it off later? But he wants it, god does he want it almost as he wants to kiss Steve right now.

“You’re a nightmare,” Steve says finally.

“I think you’ll find, I’m every dame’s _dream_ ,” Bucky winks and lets out a laugh at the expression on Steve’s face. It shouldn’t be allowed, he thinks, to be that adorable, it’s almost disgusting really, Bucky was pretty sure there was a law about it somewhere, and if there wasn’t he might very well have to go and make one, if not for anything else than the sake of his own sanity.

“Too bad you don’t wanna play about in those day dreams then, isn’t it Barnes,” Steve is still for a second, biting his lower lip and Bucky’s eyes are drawn to it, to the smooth line of bright red against pale skin that he wants to press his own mouth against in earnest, kiss until Stevie’s lips are bruised and swollen and obscene looking. The desire is a spark now, suddenly so burning that it feels like it is eating Bucky alive, like Steve is an illness infecting his whole system, and yet he is also the cure. The cure and the cause. “I bet all those girls’d be crying for weeks if they knew the truth.” it’s not something that would have ever made him smile before, but coming from Steve’s lips now he wants to laugh at it, at the absurdity of it. All those girls who claim he’s the hottest guy in school, and Bucky’s honestly never wanted anything more than the blonde kid sat next to him.

He’s not sure who’s turn it is to be brave, Bucky suspects he has a lifetime of saved up turns for every act of bravery that Steve’s committed, and if so, Steve’s never gonna have to be brave again even if they live to be a hundred – hell, even a thousand years old. He sighs, nibbling on his lower lip for a moment. Bravery always comes with a price, and there’s still a little nagging voice at the back of his mind that says that Steve wouldn’t ever want him. Not after everything Bucky has done in his life, not when somewhere buried deep within, there was a Soldier even Bucky’s own ma recognised - that one day Steve would be forced to recognise to (maybe they’d save that though, save that for a day years from now, a day that would bring Steve’s mind back to remembering this moment on a rooftop and so many more, a day where Steve would manage to somehow break seventy years of brainwashing and torture, just by saying his name. But right now, they have no idea that’s going to happen, no idea as they shouldn’t. They’re only children, they should have these moments to savour before they disappear).

It’d be too much to hope for perhaps, that a light as bright as Steve’s could ever care about him in that way, even if the boy was drawn to men as much as Bucky pretended to be drawn to women.

But then again there’s so many rewards that this could give him, just being brave now. He’s not thinking of the problems this is gonna cause beyond Steve pushing him away, although later, one day he might, when he’s scared of Steve getting beaten up for being a fag, when he’s worried about exactly what pain this relationship could cause the other boy, when he starts to think about the family Steve could have if Bucky just disappeared, just let Steve be. Right now there’s just rewards vs. Steve not actually wanting the same thing that Bucky does. And Bucky can only hope, pray, plead that he does. _Please let him want this. Let him want me._  

In the end, well, in the end he figures this whole night’s been some kind of warped weird fairytale where everything's come together far too perfectly and to be brutally honest, Bucky’s over fifty percent sure that he’s dreaming so he might as well get as far as he can with this dream version of Steve, so he at least gets a taste at one point in his life, gets to know if there was a chance, even in dreams where Steve could think of him in the same way that Bucky thought for Steve.

“You ever kissed anyone before, Stevie?” he asks quietly, trying not to blush at the words. He’s not the kind of person to blush at things such as this, but then again, when has he done anything like this before? Sure, he’s flirted with women, kissed women, took them out dancing: but he’s never been with someone he actually cared about, someone who could make his head spin just by the thought of being with them. He’s kissed girls, but he’s never really been strictly attracted to them before, and what he’s suggesting now, that would be what he would want to count as his first proper kiss, at least the first kiss he actually _wanted_ to commit if Steve wanted to as well.

He shivers, a bout of excitement flooding him when Steve doesn’t do anything but tilt his chin up so he’s looking right into Bucky’s eyes, head on, “I think we both know the answer to that is no. S’hardly like I have a chance with all the dames running in circles around you - not that I blame them,” he tags on the end, and it’s barely flirting, but Steve’s got a blush covering his whole face now which Bucky can’t help but think of as the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

And then his brain momentarily freezes because he just used _flirting_ and _Steve_ and _Bucky_ in the same sentence, and he’s pretty sure that that’s never supposed to happen without the world imploding.

It’s so nice. Because Bucky doesn’t feel like crying anymore, doesn’t feel anything but nervousness and vague excitement and a whole host of other things and Steve’s not looking unsure anymore, in fact he’s looking just as excited and nervous as Bucky is as he whispers out a quiet, “is this even real?”

Bucky chuckles quietly, “it doesn’t feel like it, does it?” and suddenly he’s a million and one percent certain that him and Steve are in exactly the same boat, that Steve’s as worried as he is about this, most likely for different reasons, and Bucky just stares down at him trying to direct all the adoration he can at that boy, because god knows he deserves it. It’s all happened so fast, this night spinning from their control, running away with them.

Bucky’s never been suspicious, doesn’t believe in wishing on stars no matter what he may have thought earlier. People are people, they make their own damn choices and those choices ain’t gonna be any better or worse depending on if someone happens to walk under a ladder or not. Still he’d never be one hundred percent certain there wasn’t some kind of magic at play that night, to make it run so fast, to make this the outcome instead of them just spotting a comet and then returning inside.

“Bucky I’m gonna-” Steve leaned up a little, and Bucky breathed out, a rush of air escaping his lips, as he felt Steve’s words sink into the skin of his jaw, Steve just a hair's width away from him, from touching his skin or at least that’s what it seemed. And god, Bucky’s just _aching_ for it. There’s so much, so much- he wants to show Steve just how much there really is, just how many feelings Steve merely being that close is pulling out of him but right now, with Steve this close, it’s almost as if he’s forgotten how to use his mouth to create words.

 “I’m gonna try something out. And if it’s wrong say so, because I don’t wanna- I just never wanna lose you,” Steve murmurs, and _now_ he sounds unsure again, the tone causing painful tuggings on each and every single heart string in Bucky’s chest, “I just- I can’t lose you, so if this is wrong you gotta tell me, you gotta tell me, Buck.”

This is it, is all that Bucky can think as he turns round to face Steve head on, to take the arm that’s wrapped around his shoulders and bring it so it’s wrapped snug around the others waist, so that they’re facing each other. He knows what’s coming, knows and yet doesn’t at the same time, because how could he ever know what kissing Steve would feel like? In reality, there’s no way to know until those lips are pressed firm against his a few moments later, after the anticipation built between them to give way to the kiss that had been on both their minds now for so long, the other not having a clue his own desires were that of his friends.

It’s not perfect, neither is it long, it’s the barest of presses, as they kiss on the rooftop, under the stars, Bucky’s heart beating oh so hard in his chest that so that he’s a hundred percent certain the whole of Brooklyn - let alone Steve - can hear it. It takes a second for it to really sink in, the way Steve is pressing forward, those fingertips running through his hair like they were made to do just that, the way Steve’s sat almost in his lap now shifting so he can get just the tiniest bit comfier, and Bucky can taste the grin spreading across Steve’s face, as he pulls back just barely to let out a whispered, “It ain’t wrong, it could never be wrong, Stevie, babydoll.”

Steve makes a surprised sound in return, one that Bucky would love to hear for the rest of his life, as Steve’s fingers come to curl in the hairs at the back of his neck, a smile covering the smaller boys cheeks as he leans in again, the barest of brushes of lips on lips again, letting Bucky taste apples and cinnamon and paint and his mother’s famous stew and so much more all over again mixed in with something so uniquely Steve that Bucky wants to never taste anything else again because this, this right here, is what starlight must taste like and Bucky’s so goddamn lucky to get to feel the taste of something that’s brought so much light to the world in his mouth.

It’s awe inspiring the way Steve kisses. He’s not at all practiced, and Bucky keeps chuckling, pulling back to reposition Steve’s head a little until that becomes too much of an effort, until he’s so far gone to worry about if their noses are squished together, the kiss becoming wet and sloppy and _wonderful._

Steve’s kissing him, Steve’s pulling him closer, Steve’s everywhere, in his lungs, on his skin, and it’s just a kiss, but it’s also so much more. Bucky’s not even sure the worlds even spinning anymore, not even sure if it hasn’t left them behind, in a perfect bubble of the kiss made so much better when Steve full on moans as Bucky swipes his tongue neatly over his lower lip, begging for the entrance that Steve gives him a moment later, and _yes_ this is so much more breath taking than kissing a dame. This is Stevie, and he’s wanted this for what feels like his whole life.

He could live to be a hundred years old, a thousand, _a million_ he could out live every single star up there in the heavens and he still wouldn’t be able to get enough of his. Of Steve kissing him and Bucky kissing back.

Bucky’s not expecting it to end, and it sort of shocks him when it does, when he’s forced to blink lust-hooded eyes open - _when did he even close them again? -_   to stare up at Steve, a lazy grin covering his face until he notices the way Steve looks, panicked, hair ruffled by the way Bucky’s fingers had slid through them, eyes wide and Bucky has just enough time to think the word _shit_ before Steve whispers out a timid and quiet, “we shouldn’t have done that.”

In all honesty, Bucky knew this was too good to be true, he knew that as soon as he had it, it would be pulled away, that the world would burn down his hopes before his eyes until there was nothing left but ash and dust and James Buchanan Barnes, broken dreams in pieces of around him, everything he ever wanted lost forever. The pain he knows, most show on his face, no matter how hard he tries to cover it.

Steve said no.

Steve likes boys _and_ he still said no.

It’s awful. It’s worse than if he never got a taste of Steve in the first place, to have had him like that, and then for him to have been ripped away. It’s...it’s the worst thing he can possibly imagine happening to him, it’s poison and hurt and Bucky’s back to thinking he might cry again, if only he could, if only Steve wasn’t sat right there. He wasn’t gonna make the kid feel guilty, wasn’t going to make this anymore awkward than it already is.

Of course, right there was when Steve drew him back, a kiss landing on his forehead, making confusion ripple under Bucky’s skin as lips pressed into a thin line just under his hairline. What? That didn’t--

“Hey, Buck, no, _no._ I didn’t mean that. Sorry, that must have sounded awful.” he murmured, “I meant-  shit,” he sounds so frustrated as he tries to explain, that in any other situation Bucky might find himself thinking words like _cute_ and _adorable_ and other things Steve would whack him round the head for thinking; but right now he’s way to scared, to worried, needs desperately to hear what Steve says next. “I liked that, I really did. God, Buck, you have no idea how long I’ve waited for that moment, you really don’t. Been waited for-fucking-ever, I really have. And it was wonderful, perfect- I just meant- I meant that you’re still technically going with Lizzie, and it may not be a sin for me to kiss you but-”

Bucky almost laughs in a hysterical manner, the relief so prominent in his mind. He isn’t losing this. He isn’t losing this. He repeated that over in his head as he rolled his eyes, pushing Steve just a little but holding on tight to where his hand had found refuge in the front of Steve’s shirt, “you and your damn morals, Rogers.” of course he was right, this wasn’t fair on Lizzie, not at all, but another part of his body whined as he eased Steve from his lap, begging him to pull him closer, to let them have this moment. Lizzie was a good kid though, and no one deserved to be cheated on, even the worst of people which Lizzie certainly wasn’t. He’d break it off with her tomorrow with an apology and a nice handful of flowers, explain that he’s not really in the mood for a relationship right now and then maybe, maybe he’d get to feel Steve’s lips against his own again. But tonight all he could do was sigh and nod, “you kiss your mother with that mouth, Rogers? That was damn well a lot of swear words there,” he teases instead, to let Steve know that everything is _fine_ thank fuck, and that they’re all good. Better than good. A feeling which only amplifies at Steve’s reply.

“Nah, only you, Buck, that I can remember. Can’t think of anyone else I’d like to kiss with this obscene mouth.”

This night - god, this night. He had no idea how it had happened, but he knew he’d remember for the rest of his goddamn life. It was so perfect, and overwhelming, and a part of him still wouldn’t believe it, was still waiting to wake up at any point in his bed with a bad case of morning wood and an unbelievable amount of disappointment weighing down on him.

He’s not sure how it all happens, not sure how they end up in the same position as when they first started, Steve’s head tipped back to look up at the stars, the only difference being his body wrapped in Bucky’s arms, using the pretence of the cold and not the kiss as an excuse to cuddle, to wrap arms around each other. Grey eyes, the colour of the reflections of the morning sun when it graces the waves of the ocean after a cloud-filled night staring resolutely at the only thing worth looking at for miles and miles, possibly the most beautiful thing in all of creation, in all of the universe: blonde hair so light it could have been a construct of a million shards of gentle sunbeams, a smile so bright it could be the very smile that god wore upon his face when he first watched the universe come into being, eyes so unbelievably blue the colour could have been stolen from the same, very endless sky that lay above them, just to be placed into those heaven made irises.

The concrete jungle of early ‘30’s Brooklyn lies in a seemingly unimportant manor in comparison to the way the sky has opened its gates to show its wondrous map of constellations, stars and planets. Millions of people fade to nothing over the gentle _feeling_ one glance at the sky can grant that night. And if Brooklyn is nothing – what, to the universe, must two boys laid out upon the roof gazing up at the stars be? Nothing more than a speck of dust in the corner of a neglected room; slouched upon a book, abandoned for years for the next generation.

Even as these thoughts float through his head, Bucky can still taste starlight on his tongue.  
  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my wonderful and amazing Beta: rageandserenityis_ecstasy who writes some wonderful smut for various ships if you're intrested.
> 
> And thank you for reading this 12K fic, I promise I'm not always this descriptive or this long winded, I just was in one of those moods. If you've got time a comment giving constructive criticisms or (if there were any) mentioning a point you liked would be really appreciated. I'm always looking to better my writing and feedback really does help with that. If you did enjoy this, I hope you'll be at least mildly pleased to know I plan on posting a fic once every few weeks on this site.
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr if you want to, feel free to leave prompts although I can't always promise I'll get round to them, my own idea's book is very full right now: http://notebooksandlaptops.tumblr.com/


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